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Lowell school panel simmers over heating controls

By Sarah Favot, sfavot@lowellsun.com

Updated:
01/03/2013 06:35:23 AM EST

LOWELL -- Walking past one of the public school system's two dozen buildings this winter, you might see an open window providing some relief to students and staff from the heat blasting inside the classroom.

At Wednesday night's School Committee meeting, Kristin Ross-Sitcawich and Kim Scott said they saw such a scene and urged district administrators to address the issue of allowing heating controls in individual classrooms.

"Given the technology that we do have installed, I would think that it would be possible to put some site control back to our principals and administrators in our schools," said Ross-Sitcawich.

Deputy Superintendent of Finance and Operations Jay Lang said the district, through the city's energy-savings performance contract with Amersco Inc., installed new heating-control systems last winter in its schools that allow heat in individual classrooms to be monitored centrally.

This winter, he said, would be spent working through all the kinks in the system.

The district hired a part-time person to work through those issues. He's been on the job for a couple of weeks, Lang said.

Scott said she thinks it needs to be a priority and hoped it wouldn't take the entire winter to sort out the system.

Robert Gignac said the ongoing problems with heating systems in the district's schools is "unacceptable."

He said while some classrooms have open windows, students in other classrooms are wearing winter coats because the heat isn't working.

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"It seems like it's getting worse and worse. We're putting money into this stuff to resolve these problems and it doesn't seem like anything is happening," he said.

In other business, James Leary resubmitted his motion requesting the school administration involve several community partners in discussing the future needs of Lowell High School.

Leary mentioned the city is discussing its draft, "Comprehensive Master Plan: Sustainable Lowell 2025" from the Department of Planning and Development and noted it would be timely to bring up discussions about the high school.

"What (the plan) doesn't address is the future of Lowell High School. Being a School Department, we're the ones that need to sit down and bring it to the city," said Leary.

The discussion should include what the students need to do now and what the students are going to need in terms of the facility and infrastructure to move on to higher education, go into the military or the workforce, said Leary.

Superintendent of Schools Jean Franco said she's had preliminary discussions with UMass Lowell Chancellor Marty Meehan and Middlesex Community College President Carole Cowan.

She said the high school's immediate needs to implement the curriculum upgrades the committee has brought forth will have to be part of the school district's budget discussions.

In other business, Franco updated the School Committee on her first Parent Advisory Board meeting in November. Franco established the board to facilitate discussion between parents from all schools and School District administration.

Franco said parents named the strengths of the district as providing a sense of community and quality teaching staff.

Concerns from elementary-school parents were class size and wanting more opportunities before and after school. Middle-school parents wanted more peer-centered programs like tutoring.

High-school parents talked about getting more students involved in school activities.

"The most important work that we can do is with parents because that's what impacts achievements and outcomes for young people," said Franco.

The School Committee also:

* Unanimously approved Scott's motion that Franco provide copies of social studies, science and allied-arts curriculum and provide recommendations for improvement that will ensure consistency among all schools.

* Unanimously approved Scott's motion to provide a link to the School Committee's policy manual and employment contracts online.

* Unanimously approved Scott's motion requesting Franco report on the feasibility of setting up a YouTube education account for all schools and/or other options for setting up a video library for the district.

* Unanimously approved Scott and Ross-Sitcawich's motion to invite all of the PTO groups to a citywide PTO sandbox meeting.

* Unanimously approved Gignac's motion to request Franco report on the impact of state budget cuts on fiscal 2013's budget.

* Unanimously approved Leary's motion requesting a report on the anticipated health-trust-fund balance as well as the portion and timing of funds to be directed to the School Department.

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